GuShiio.com Original title: “Why did Tether spend more than US$770 million to invest in video platform Rumble? Business Experience from Trump Circle
Original author: Nancy, PANews
On February 7, video sharing platform Rumble announced that it had completed a strategic investment of US$775 million from Tether. Although Tether, which makes tens of billions of dollars in annual profits, has been accelerating its investment pace in the past few months, Rumble’s cross-sector investment is still surprising.
Opportunities behind strategic investment of over US$770 million
Since Rumble announced in December 2024 that it had reached a final agreement with Tether to obtain a strategic investment of US$775 million, the investment and tender offer were officially completed recently. As part of the transaction, Tether purchased 103,333,333 shares of Rumble Class A common stock at $7.50 per share for a total value of $775 million. Of that,$250 million will be used for growth plans, including attracting more content creators, strategic acquisitions and enhancements to Rumble Cloud’s technology infrastructure.
As a video sharing platform established in 2013, Rumble has won the favor of a large number of creators for advocating freedom of speech, fairer distribution of revenue and granting more copyrights. It has also once become a safe haven against excessive regulation of traditional social media platforms. For example, during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Rumble broke the record with 1.79 million simultaneous online viewers and became the center of political discussion.
Regarding this investment, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski revealed in an interview with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy that the investment will promote Rumble’s global expansion, attract new creators, and redefine the meaning of a free speech platform. In addition, Pavlovski also mentioned the impact of Trump’s election on Rumble’s mission, believing that cooperation with Tether will help Rumble expand globally, especially in areas where freedom of speech is suppressed. Integrating cryptocurrency will change the way creators monetize content, provide crypto-based reward and payment options, and further reduce reliance on centralized systems.
In addition, Tether’s choice to invest in Rumble may be related to the latter’s close connection with Trump and its desire to expand its business layout in the United States.
Rumble has a deep relationship with US President Trump and is even called “Trump Concept Stock” by the outside world. As early as the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Trump began to turn to Rumble after being banned by mainstream social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and losing his social media voice. At the same time, Trump also launched his own social platform Truth Social at the time, which used video and streaming services provided by Rumble. It is worth mentioning that in addition to Trump, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s venture capital fund Naya Capital Management also participated in Rumble’s investment.
With Trump coming to power again, the friendly encryption policy environment of the United States has also attracted Tether’s layout. In January this year, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino pointed out in an interview with Bloomberg TV that expectations for improving the regulatory environment in the crypto industry, coupled with Tether’s recent $775 million investment in U.S. listed company Rumble, provide the company with a good opportunity to reassess the U.S. market. However, he also stressed that although the possibility of further entering the U.S. market is not ruled out, it is necessary to wait for regulatory clarity and specific guidance, and the final decision will be made based on the development of the U.S. legal framework.
Buy Bitcoin, crypto strategy helps stock prices rise sharply
Since the end of last year, Rumble has frequently appeared in the encryption field. In addition to obtaining Tether investment, Rumble is also actively building Bitcoin reserves and launching a series of related encryption products.
“Should Rumble add Bitcoin to its balance sheet?” In November 2024, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski launched a vote on X asking whether Bitcoin should be included in the company’s balance sheet, which received high votes.
A few days later, Rumble announced an investment of up to US$20 million in Bitcoin as an important part of the company’s financial diversification strategy and positioned Bitcoin as a strategic asset and inflation hedge.
At the time, Chris Pavlovski said that Bitcoin is still in its early stages of adoption, and crypto-friendly U.S. government policies and the increase in institutional investors are accelerating the process. Unlike any government-issued currency, Bitcoin is not diluted by endless money printing, making it a valuable inflation hedge and an excellent supplement to the treasury. The company plans to integrate cryptocurrency into its ecosystem to create a leading video and cloud service platform for the crypto community. Of course, Chris Pavlovski later said that this would not be the last time, implying that the company may continue to increase its holdings of Bitcoin assets in the future.
In January this year, Rumble also announced that it would launch Rumble Wallet, a crypto-wallet that supports Bitcoin and USDT, which will provide creators with new trading methods. Creators can receive fan rewards and subscription revenue through these two cryptocurrencies. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said in this regard,”A cool feature of Rumble Wallet is to use AI agents/assistants to help manage payments, suggest Bitcoin savings strategies based on past activities, reward the most watched creators, etc.”
The layout of this series of encryption strategies has also had a positive impact on Rumble’s share price. According to Google Finance, since Rumble announced its intention to adopt a Bitcoin funding strategy, the company’s share price has soared. Its share price has risen as high as 169.8%, once reaching a record high of $16.27.
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